Why do so few Black officers lead combat units?
WASHINGTON – The lack of Black officers in the Army’s combat commands has diminished the chances for diversity in military leadership for years to come, resulting in a nearly all-white leadership of an increasingly diverse military and nation.
The Army, the largest of the armed services, has made little progress in promoting officers of color, particularly Black soldiers, to commands in the past six years, a USA TODAY analysis found.
Black people make up 22.7% of enlisted soldiers, 16.5% of warrant officers and 11% of officers on active duty as of July. At the officer levels, this is a decrease from 21%, 18.4% and 12.6%, respectively, in 2010. The stakes of fairness and equity are manifest. So, too, is military's ability to defend the nation.
“The public that we serve should see a reflection of that public in our ranks. From top to bottom and left to right," said Brig. Gen. Milford Beagle, a Black infantryman who commands Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the Army's largest basic training post. "Anytime you have a team that has diversity of thought, diversity of color, diversity of culture – all those things – it’s going to be a much stronger team. I’m a firm believer in that, and it gives our Army a strategic advantage. Looking out to our threats that are out there, they may not necessarily have that. But we do.”
Not enough, some argue. Consider the new commanders of the Army's operational brigades, including front-line units such as infantry, artillery and armor: There are 96 such brigades of about 4,000 soldiers each led by a colonel. Two of the incoming commanders of those units are Black.
In 2014, when USA TODAY began collecting such data, the Army had no Black colonels leading its combat arms units. Command at battalion and brigade level is practically a prerequisite to leading the Army's legendary divisions such as the 82nd Airborne, 10th Mountain and 1st Armored. Not coincidentally, the past five Army chiefs of staff commanded infantry or armored divisions.
The story is only slightly better an echelon below brigade. At the battalion level, where lieutenant colonels are in charge of about 700 soldiers, there are 13 Black commanders out of 231 combat units, or 5.6%.
The Army is addressing the problem with an array of initiatives. Among them: removing photos of officers from personnel files so promotion boards are less aware of race.
Another sign of progress: More young minority officers are choosing combat assignments. Leading the Army’s combat units is a critical stepping stone to the four-star ranks.
The military's reckoning with racial inequality coincides with national unrest that erupted after the killing of George Floyd, a Black man in police custody, prompting military leaders to acknowledge racial inequality in the ranks.
"We must thoughtfully examine our institution and ensure it is a place where all Americans see themselves represented and have equal opportunity to succeed, especially in leadership positions," chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said July 9 in testimony before Congress.
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who chairs the military personnel panel on the Armed Services Committee, sponsored a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act that would establish diversity goals, plans to meet them and a special inspector general for racial and ethnic disparities.
“It’s 2020, and the Army combat arms only have two Black incoming commanders out of 96, showing that the path to attaining senior rank remains effectively closed to Black soldiers,” Speier said Monday.
She called the finding a “glaring example of structural racism.”
“Failure to cultivate leadership that is truly representative of America threatens troop morale and cohesion,” Speier said. “The strength and future of our armed forces is its diversity. Congress has a duty to ensure military leadership understand and heed that fact.”
There are no quick fixes. It can take 20 years or more to train a colonel to lead a brigade, about 15 years to groom a lieutenant colonel for battalion command. Along the way, these officers typically have led smaller units at the platoon and company level, acquiring specialized leadership and tactical skills for leading forces into battle.
"There's no lateral entry for an infantry or armored battalion or brigade commander," said Lyle Hogue, a top Army official involved in planning and strategy for its inclusion efforts. "We can't bring them in when they're 30 years old and pin major or lieutenant colonel promotions on them. What we're seeing today is a product of what happened 20 years ago."
The other services also struggle to diversify their senior ranks.
In the Air Force, the other service that provided USA TODAY with demographic data for leadership of its combat units, three of 85 who command wings of warplanes are Black; 76, or 89%, are white. Being a combat pilot and leading them are near-prerequisites to senior command.
The Marines have the least diversity in their top ranks. Not a single Black Marine has made it to the top four-star rank; six African Americans reached lieutenant general (three stars); fewer than 20 have received one or two stars, The New York Times reported. Out of 60 Marine generals, five brigadier generals and one major general are Black.
'Heavy burden' carried by few at the top
One result of the paucity of minority officers at lower ranks is the lack of diversity at the very summit of the military. A select few ascend to the top of the pyramid. In May 2020, there were 19 Black one-star generals in the Army, 15 two-stars, eight three-stars and one four-star, according to Defense Department data. Compare that with white Army generals: 107 one-stars, 90 two-stars, 37 three-stars and 11 four-stars.
Gen. Michael Garrett, commanding general of Forces Command, is the Army's lone Black four-star officer. Garrett is a career infantry officer.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, which dates to 1942, is made up of the service chiefs from the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy and National Guard Bureau. At the very top sit the chairman and vice chairman, the top two officers in the military.
In August, the first Black general to lead one of the services, Gen. Charles Brown, an F-16 pilot, was sworn in as Air Force chief of staff. Army Gen. Colin Powell, the first and only Black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the leap to the top without having served as chief of staff of the Army. He was an infantry officer.
Brown spoke openly about discrimination in the military.
"I'm thinking about how my nomination provides some hope but also comes with a heavy burden," Brown said. "I can't fix centuries of racism in our country, nor can I fix decades of discrimination that may have impacted members of our Air Force."
The rest of the service chiefs, the chairman and vice chairman are white. There are no women either. Combat jobs opened fully to them in 2015. Hispanics make up about 16% of all active-duty military, according to the Department of Defense, but Latinos are only 8% of the officer corps and 2% of general/flag officers, according to a report in 2019 by the Congressional Research Service.